I had just dropped off my oldest — and, at the time, only — son at the Montessori school he attended in Norman, Okla., when a KTOK radio reporter shared a live report about some kind of explosion in downtown Oklahoma City, 20 miles north of where I was. It was only after more details began to flood in that the scope of the tragedy became evident.
Four years ago today, I published my first, albeit brief, article about the Oklahoma City Bombing. No investigative journalism. No interviews. More than anything, just an observance. Because I didn’t know much at the time.
That changed after I read Jayna Davis’ New York Times Best Seller, The Third Terrorist.
On June 7, 2009, I published a piece in which I called for the federal government to reopen its investigations Into TWA Flight 800 and the Oklahoma City Bombing.
On Sept. 27, 2009, I published another, Video Raises New Doubts About Oklahoma City Bombing Evidence, Investigation. It included my first mention of Jesse Trentadue’s relentless campaign to obtain copies of pre-explosion surveillance video shot by cameras in downtown Oklahoma City and, in turn, learn the truth about the death of his brother, Kenneth Trentadue, while in federal custody in Oklahoma City. It also included several statements attributed to Trentadue in a NewsOK.com article published that day. Among them, one stood out:
“Four cameras in four different locations going blank at basically the same time on the morning of April 19, 1995. There ain’t no such thing as a coincidence.” — Jesse Trentadue
On Sept. 28, 2009, I published three more articles — part 1 of 3, part 2 of 3 and Part 3 of 3 — based on my exclusive interview with author Davis who, after years of not speaking to anyone in the news media, broke her silence about the OKC Bombing videotapes.
On Sept. 30, 2009, I published another article based on my exclusive interview with David P. Schippers, a Chicago attorney who gained fame during the ’90s as the man who served as chief investigative counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee during the Clinton Impeachment Hearings, as manager of the proceedings that followed in the U.S. Senate, and as the author of the book, SELLOUT: The Inside Story of President Clinton’s Impeachment, chronicling those events. NOTE: He also served as director of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Task Force in Chicago under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy during the 1960s, though I didn’t realize that at the time I wrote this article.
On April 20, 2010, I shared political pundit Dick Morris’ observation that President Bill Clinton’s Waco actions render claims of an OKC Bombing cover-up more believable than ever. Sadly, Morris’ claims only scratched the surface of a much larger crime.
Hussain Al-Hussaini (Quincy P.D. Photo)
More articles followed until, on March 11, 2011, I shared details about the arrest of Hussain Al-Hussaini, the man author Davis pegged as the third terrorist in her book of the same name, being arrested in Quincy, Mass. Not surprisingly, no one in the mainstream news media showed interest in the man’s arrest, since the Timothy McVeigh-Terry Nichols narrative had already been “sold” to the American public.
After learning the Oklahoma City Bombing videotapes would be the subject of a federal court hearing in Salt Lake City May 11, I began covering Trentadue’s efforts more closely April 7, 2011. I was particularly impressed by the attorney’s common-man reasoning he shared with Judge Clark Waddoups in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, Central Division:
The American public has a right to know what happened in Oklahoma City on the morning of April 19, 1995 and, more importantly, why? Yet, it is obvious that for some reason FBI Defendants do not want the truth about the Oklahoma City bombing made public. Perhaps the reason is as simple as: the Federal Government’s prior knowledge of that planned attack and failure to prevent it, or that there were others involved whom the Federal government chose not to expose and/or prosecute. But whatever the reason, that is precisely why the FOIA became law: to protect the right of American citizens to know their own history and, more importantly, their government. And that is why the Court should reject the FBI Defendants’ claim that their only obligation is to search their computerized records for this evidence knowing that it is not there and once that search they knew would fail has been concluded, they need do no more.
Also of interest were several documents Trentadue shared with me that shed light on the FBI’s response to his Freedom of Information Act request for the missing videotapes.
I continued to follow Trentadue’s efforts in several 2011 posts — on May 11, May 13, June 27, July 1, Sept. 9 — ending with one ‘Fast and Furious” post Oct. 10.
After almost a year passed, I picked up the trail again Sept. 11, 2012, publishing a piece under the headline, One-Hour Video Will Chill You. It featured the video below.
On Oct. 21, 2012, I shared more details about Trentadue’s relentless pursuit of the truth about his brother’s death. It was followed less than two months later by another not-so-dramatic update.
Things turned much more dramatic Jan. 30, when I shared details about Trentadue’s pursuit of information about the FBI’s “Sensitive Informant Program,” described by Trentadue as one used by the bureau “to recruit and/or place informants on the staffs of members of the United States Congress and perhaps even federal judges, in the national media, within other federal agencies as well as the White House, on defense teams in high-profile federal and/or state criminal prosecutions, inside state and local law enforcement agencies, and even among the clergy of organized religions.”
On March 1, 2013, I shared a follow-up piece about the FBI’s “Sensitive Informant Program,” using a headline to ask the question, Are FBI Informants Working Inside America’s Churches?
Eighteen years after the Oklahoma City Bombing, many questions persist and the truth remains elusive; therefore, I will strive to keep you updated on the case, in part, by following Trentadue as he pursues the truth about his brother’s death and, in turn, the Oklahoma City Bombing. Stay tuned!
Bob McCarty is the author of Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, a nonfiction book that’s available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com. It chronicles the life and wrongful conviction of Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart. His second book, THE CLAPPER MEMO, is coming soon.
